Now that the U series set around the town of Saltmarsh and produced in the UK was completed, a new UK series of modules started coming out, the UK series, and this was the first of that group. It’s a very different approach to modules than what was usual at the time, how successful it is is pretty questionable, but with a good DM willing to put a lot of work into role play, I’m sure it could be a fun adventure, and a kind of break in a longer campaign.

I speak of it as a break because this is a module with very little combat and in fact a story that really rewards players who find alternate ways to solve problems. The DM is instructed to award XP for players diffusing situations and walking away on friendly terms rather than by killing, for example. 

The story is based around Romeo and Juliet and the characters are hired by the two warring families to bring back the eloped lovers. Now, things get complicated because the loverers escaped to a kind of fairyland, Porpherio’s Garden, built by a legendary magic user and his lover and now serving as a paradisiacal tomb to both. Time works differently there and the place is populated by all kinds of fantastic creatures, most of whom are not evil and the players have to navigate the Garden and tomb/fortress to find the lovers and bring them back. Light on combat, heavy on dreamlike leprechauns, centaurs, unicorns and other fantastical beings ripe for role play, it’s an interestingly different, self-contained, module that works well as something to throw in the middle of a meatier campaign.